State’s Trying, But Gaining Traction’s Tough In Emerging Field Of Bioinformatics

When executives hundreds or thousands of miles away from Connecticut make decisions to restructure or close an pharmaceutical research office here, what happens to the Ph.D.s who worked there?

Do they scatter to suburban Washington, Boston, California, where biotech is booming? Do they stay, and go into business for themselves? Find a job at another company in Connecticut? Or find a retreat in academia?

A sizable number of Connecticut's entrepreneurs in bioinformatics, a hot young field which merges computer science and medical research, are veterans of these upheavals. Although many have been beneficiaries of state spending to make the state a hub for biotech research and commercial ventures, they are far from certain that their small efforts will add up to a true cluster of expertise and employment opportunities.

The field suffered a body blow in Connecticut when more than 1,000 jobs at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. in Groton disappeared in the past five years.

Bob Volkmann lost his job at Pfizer's Groton research center in 2009 after 34 years with the company.

He and other Pfizer refugees that year formed SystaMedic Inc. in Groton, where Volkmann is now chief sicentific officer. The company specializes in biofinformatics for drug discovery and drug repurposing.

But the jobs aren't quite the same.

Systamedic, which has 13 team members, all pushed out of Pfizer, doesn't pay salaries. Instead, the partners find their own consulting work and contribute part of the fee to the company.

"How we do it isn't a great model for somebody who's just lost their job," Volkmann said. He said there have been five Systamedic workers who went to "real jobs" all out of state, mostly in Boston, a hub of biomedical research.

The 5:30 a.m. train from New London to Boston, he said, has a "Pfizer car."

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State's Trying, But Gaining Traction's Tough In Emerging Field Of Bioinformatics